The Friendship Breakup

I had a friend, who had a pretty bad temper. He kinda looks like a jolly Chinese… Santa… well without the beard and the hair on the top. But yeah other than that, just like Santa. On the surface, he seemed really nice. He was always considerate of others, looked like he cared what others said. People shared with him pretty easily. But, once you get to know him….whooo boy! Watch out! I got to know him pretty well one year, and well… let’s say it was a non-stop cheese and whine show, heavy on the whine. It got to be pretty bad, because against my better judgment, I started acting on things he told me. My views of other people started changing, and I started doubting everyone. I knew that wasn’t me, who I was. So I resolved to get away.

Have you ever broken a friendship before? It’s very weird. It’s kinda like breaking up with a girlfriend, only this is another guy. How do you approach it? “I’m sorry, but this… this isn’t working out.” “It’s not you! It’s me!” Those don’t really work. And you can’t say things like, “I think it’s time we hang around other friends.” It’s definitely not something that happens every day. Usually with my other friends, we just stop hanging out, we drift away. Usually it happens during school changes, like from eighth grade to high school, then from high school to college. But those are victims of circumstance, this was by choice. So, I took the coward’s way out.

I stopped talking to him.

For the first few weeks, he would call and leave vmail. I didn’t answer any nor check my vmail. He would also email me, but I deleted those as soon as I saw his name. That was made easier because somehow people had cracked his account and was using that same account to send spam. So, kill two birds with one stone, eh? Eventually, he took the hint and stopped calling or trying to contact me.

You know, Seinfeld had an episode exactly like my situation. It was an early one, with Seinfeld and this guy who was very self-centered. Never really listened to what Seinfeld had to say. So Jerry tries to end it. But then the guy starts crying! And it seemed just like what a girl would do when a guy tried to end the date. He starts blubbering about how his life sucks, and Jerry is the only bright spot. So of course Jerry backs out and even tries to bribe him by giving him Yankee tickets.

No, this isn’t a column about how to break up a friendship. I’m sure there’s a better way to do it. Nope, this column is about something completely different. It’s about forgiveness actually.